Taste Notes

2016-11-18: Sweet, clean, honey, fruity, good on low carbonation from yeast and room temp while racking to keg. I wouldn't say it was especially Belgian, I think the initial English yeast had a larger impact on the flavor profile. I think this will be a winter time hit!

Notes

This recipe is my own, no one else to blame. ;-)
Ver 1.0 reflects my original formulation.
Ver 1.1 adjusts for available ingredients. Wyeast 1028 British Cask Ale for London ESB. Crystal 120L for Special B.
2016-04-28: Making starter using 6.6oz of CBW Golden Light DME and 2L water, with both packages of Wyeast 1028 British Casj Ale and Wyeast 3787 Trapist High Gravity.
Used SS Soup Pot to boil wort and 2L Erlenmeyer Flask with stir plate for ferment over night.
While I started with 2L of water, boil brought me down to 1.7L. A little unfortunate. I will need to be more careful next time as I need 2L to get my cell count up there close to where it was supposed to be. Solution for now: I boiled more water and added it to bring the level up to 2L.
Later in the day when I went to pitch, the British Cask Ale packet had not swolen and was obviously less active. I added it anyway as it will make whatever contribution it can.
Also note that 2L of wort plus two packet of Wyeast is really to much for my flask. The wort is up into the neck half an inch.
2016-04-29: Brewday. Since I added the honey to the fermenter I was unable to get the OG until it was mixed in. In this case I goofed and added the 2L yeast starter first as well. Is this right or wrong? I don’t know. It potentially made the OG low, which came out at 1.095 instead of the expected 1.101. Other gravities and volumes were positive so it seems od to be low.
Into fermenter by 15:30 and appears to be bubbling at 18:00.
2016-05-24: Racked to secondary. SG is 1.033@65.7°F or 1.034. Still very high, but bubbling was completely stopped and not restarted with agitation. Taste is sweet (of course), fruity and alcohol hot.
2016-06-09: Creating Trappist High Gravity starter using 1.2 L pre-boil water and 3.38 oz DME. We got 1L of wort from this.
The Braggot SG = 1.033@62.1°F or 1.033. Essentialy no change. Yeast added tomorrow to change that. Note that the Wyeast Slap Pack did not swell especially well but I went ahead with the starter anyway. I should be able to tell tomorrow if it went ok.
3026-06-11: Yeast thickened to point of making the whirlpool nearly go away and then returned to having some head. It did not clump and floculate when it was shut off. Still, I believe it is OK. I racked the wort to a 6.5G glass carboy so that I would have room for yeast and active fermentation and Oxygenated the wort with the new oxygen bottle and wand kit. Added yeast.
2016-06-12: Fermentation has been extremely slow to restart. We are getting some bubbling again but the period is over a minute and no krausen has formed.
2016-09-08: We've had good fermentation once it got going, potentially due to providing raw oxygen. I am pretty sure I missed some notes above. Although very very slow, it is still bubbling. Racked to secondary - I need the large glass primary for tomorrows Dubbel. SG is 1.025@68.8°F or 1.026. Too high. No off tastes other than a possibly expected and subtle amount of alcohol heat. Honey sweet of course.
2016-11-18: SG = 1.024@64°F or 1.024. Only two points change in over two months. Going to call this done, so FG = 1.024, ABV is 9.5%. Kegging to keg #6 and going on tap #4.